Identification of self-complementary virus-specific ribonucleic acid in chick kidney cells infected with chicken embryo lethal orphan virus.

RNA was extracted from primary chicken embryo kidney (CEK) cells infected with chicken embryo lethal orphan (CELO) virus and exposed to a pulse of (5-3H)-uridine late in infection. When this RNA was self-annealed, 4.5% became resistant to pancreatic ribonuclease digestion. The ribonuclease-resistant RNA was isolated by chromatography on Sephadex G-100, and the RNA was found to have the characteristics of a double-stranded molecule of sedimentation coefficient 8S. Half of the column-isolated RNA hybridized to CELO DNA with equal amounts of virus RNA binding to the heavy or light stands of the CELO DNA, indicating the presence of complementary RNA species late in the infectious cycle of CELO.